


Nor to return from following after thee

by subversivegrrl



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subversivegrrl/pseuds/subversivegrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Daryl and Carol’s drive into Atlanta, following the cross car to Grady, had gone somewhat differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nor to return from following after thee

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly written last year between S5x02, “Strangers,” and 5x06, “Consumed.” Canon-divergent version (-ish) of 5x06, published now because I am bad at dealing with the endless delay in allowing my OTP to begin to heal their emotional wounds. DOES NOT RESOLVE ANYTHING but it made me feel a little bit better.

The interior of the car reeked of decaying leaves and moldy foam cushions, sodden from being exposed to the elements for god only knew how long. Carol was almost glad the passenger-side window was stuck open--the air whistling through the car was chilly, but the stink would have been nauseating in an enclosed space.

She’d managed to fish a torn garbage bag out of the litter in the back and tucked it underneath her, but not before the back of her pants and shirttail had gotten fairly well soaked. It was going to be an uncomfortable trip--probably in more ways than one. For the moment, though, Daryl’s attention was on the car ahead of them, not on her.

The dim greenish glow from the instrument panel turned his face into something from a B-grade monster movie, highlighting the way his jaw worked as he manhandled their poor beater of a car down the country roads, and outlining the tendons in his hands and wrists where he clenched the wheel, his eyes focused like lasers on those receding tail lights.

He’d been silent since he told her to get into the car. She hadn’t thought twice before she moved--not out of blind obedience, but because she trusted him absolutely. If he said they needed to go, they were gone. That’s how it was these days. If you hesitated you could be dead.

He suddenly jerked and swore, striking the wheel with the butt of his hand. “ _Fuck_! Should have told someone what was up. Christ only knows what they’ll be thinking, maybe send out a search party, put people at risk--”

“Stop, Daryl,” she said softly. “We didn’t have a choice. Even a minute’s delay, we would have lost--” She wasn’t quite sure what or who it was they were following, or why. “Did you actually _see_ Beth?”

The noise that came out of him--a snarl of frustration and disgust--took her back to early days, when they’d been strangers to each other, when he’d been a volatile unknown. Now, though, she could hear the pain underneath. “The car that took her, it had a cross on the back window, like a white plus-sign. The same _exact_ kind of cross on that car up there.”

“I didn’t see it,” she admitted. “I was trying to get out of sight."

“I ain’t imagined it,” Daryl insisted. “Wasn’t the same car, I don’t think, but there’s gotta be a connection, I’d stake my life.” His hands flexed hard, like he wanted to pick the car up and hurl it forward by sheer force of will.

“No, of course, I get it,” Carol said. “If you say it’s so, I believe you. I guess--we just follow them, see where it takes us. Figure out what to do when we get wherever they’re going.” He seemed to relax a little at that, as if he’d been reconsidering his hasty decision to drag her along, or thinking she’d have second thoughts herself. “Hey,” she said, leaning forward to catch his eye, “I’m with you.” After a moment he nodded and eased his death grip on the steering wheel.

He was right, though--the rest of their people would be frantic, with the two of them disappearing like this. _Instead of just one_ , she thought to herself. If Daryl hadn’t followed her, she could have been well away by now. She hadn’t really considered that they might send out a search party once they realized she was missing. In her secret heart she thought they’d be relieved not to have her there, complicating things. Or maybe that was just the way she wished it--to slip away, unnoticed, from all the lingering questions.

“One goddamn person to keep track of, and I couldn’t even manage that,” Daryl said after a time, his words shaded with bitterness. “Opened the door without looking, like a goddamn rube. Let down my guard and ended up getting Beth ki--” His voice cracked.

“Oh, Daryl,” she whispered, horrified and heartbroken. “Is that what you think happened? That you’re responsible for her being taken?”

“Just the way it was,” he said shortly. “You wasn’t there, you can’t say it ain’t the truth.”

She wasn’t foolish enough to offer false reassurance. Not after the pecan grove. Maybe not even before that. They were all reduced to working with what was, not what they’d choose if they could, and sometimes circumstances outweighed the resources any of them could command, even him. “Beth’s tougher than we maybe give her credit for,” Carol told him. “We just need to have a little faith. I came back, didn’t I?”

Daryl braked so sharply that Carol looked up in panic, expecting some problem ahead, but all she saw was the distant tail lights of the cross car. He was looking sideways at her, his eyes in shadow. “Yeah, guess that’s so,” he said, sighing, and turned his head back to the road, pressing on into the darkness.

They were almost creeping now, through silent streets littered with abandoned vehicles, an eerie slalom through the city’s corpse. Daryl maintained enough distance to keep their quarry barely in sight, holding their car to the edges as much as he could. Out of the corner of her eye Carol caught a glimpse of skulls covered in ragged flesh as shambling figures turned toward the noise of the cars, and a skitter of dread slid up her spine. To be back in Atlanta after all this time, after they’d ceded it to the hordes of the dead, was so much worse than she’d anticipated.

Ahead of them the white-cross car unexpectedly slowed to turn, pulling up to a gate. “There,” Daryl said, easing the car to the curb. “End of the road.” After a moment the gate slid back, and the car accelerated into a fenced lot that already held several other vehicles.

Light glowed in the upper windows of the multi-story building just beyond the lot: the artificial glare of actual electric lights, unmistakable after so long without them. Other than that neither of them could make out anything further about its structure or fortifications. They had to assume there were sentries watching--no one held this much ground this boldly without having taken adequate measures to ensure its security. Daryl carefully put the car in reverse and backed away until they could put some buildings between themselves and their objective.

They tucked their vehicle behind a parking garage half a block away, and sat quiet for a few minutes, weighing their options. "That's gotta be their home base," Daryl said at length. "Did you see all those lights? That means generators, reliable fuel--probably a whole lot of people. Guns.” He leaned his forearms on the wheel and scraped his fingers through his hair. “We need better intel. Much as I'd like to move right now, get a jump on them, we're flying blind on their turf."

“We need to find someplace to hole up for the rest of the night, maybe somewhere we can get eyes on them come morning,” Carol said. She leaned into the back seat and pulled her pack out from where she’d stashed it. “It’s not much, but I’ve got some supplies--ammunition for the rifle, a few bottles of water, some power bars.” She looked up to find Daryl’s eyes on her again, flat and accusing. “Don’t look at me like that. Would you rather we were out here with nothing at all?”

For a moment she barely recognized him under the hardness that blazed across his face, but it passed as quickly as it came, and he put his head down, pressing his hands over his eyes. “Yeah, it’s good you came prepared. We’ll need it.”

They piled out of the car and slipped down the alley behind the buildings, looking for a way in. Despite their efforts to be quiet, the thump of the car doors closing attracted some straggling walkers, and for a few minutes the alley was filled with the groans of the dead and their own harsh breathing as they moved in tandem to deal with the threat.

“Here,” Carol said, yanking open a steel door. She switched on her flashlight and pointed it along the rifle barrel, casting harsh shadows up the stairwell. Daryl followed, pulling the door closed behind them. The only sounds were the metallic echoes of their footsteps as they climbed.

The first floor they came to looked like a war zone--collapsed ceiling, shattered glass, and the faint stink of rotted flesh. Whatever happened there had happened some time ago--maybe as far back as the evacuation. Daryl took a look in each direction and shook his head. “Keep going.” The next floor was more of the same, with the addition of the handful of walkers that came lurching toward them the moment they came through the door. Carol drove the nearest one back, giving Daryl space to step in and jam a bolt up under its chin. They backed into the stairwell and closed the door against the remainder.

The door to the third floor opened onto a mezzanine, oddly uncluttered after the chaos of the floors below. Carol took only two steps into the wide hallway before Daryl’s arm came up to block her. “Look,” he whispered. Ahead of them a set of double doors stood open, revealing a walkway with tall windows on both sides. It would provide a perfect vantage from which to watch the building where the cross car had ended up. The only problem was that it looked like a refugee center, with rows of sleeping bags and other bedding piled on both sides. In the center a four-person dome tent stood, its door zipped open as though the occupants had just stepped out.

As they approached, alert to any movement or noise, the thick coating of dust quickly told them it hadn’t been used in months. All around them were piles of vital belongings, abandoned with no apparent effort at retrieval. A chill coursed up Carol’s back at the thought of what must have happened, to make them flee like that.

“This is our spot, right here--we can see the whole back of their operation. Block this off from both ends, try to get some sleep for now." Daryl was already rifling through the flotsam lining the walls for something they could use to secure the skyway. He leaned his crossbow against the wall and pulled out a knot of climbing rope. “We can tie the doors shut with this. Don't see 'em going back out before daylight. Even if they do we don’t have a good way of following.” He paused, watching her for confirmation.

Carol shrugged and dropped her pack against the wall. “Sounds like as good a plan as any. I’m so tired I’m almost cross-eyed. It would be a blessing to get to lie down for a bit.”

She stood guard with the rifle while Daryl cinched up the double doors at each end of the hallway. “That should hold up if we get any visitors; you need to get out in a hurry, though, you just pull on this,” he said, indicating one of the free ends. “Give it a yank and get through the door.”

“I’ll let you lead,” Carol said dryly. “Don’t even think it,” she added, catching the stubborn set of his mouth. “If it’s bad enough that we’re running again, we’re going together.” A shadow passed over his face again, but he nodded his silent acknowledgment.

It only took a few minutes rummaging to assemble a sizeable stack of bedding, including a disappointingly flat air mattress. Carol was about to kick it to the side when Daryl straightened from the pile in front of him and smugly waved a purse-sized object. “Foot pump,” he announced. “We’re sleeping good tonight.”

Working together, they got the mattress inflated and a mix of sleeping bags and blankets spread across it. “God,” Carol said, looking down at the result like it was something out of a home decor magazine. “I’m half afraid I’ll sleep too deeply if I’m that comfortable.”

“You sleep,” Daryl said, “I’ll watch.”

“We should both sleep, while we have the chance,” Carol said. “Nothing’s getting through those doors without making a whole lot of noise.” He hunched his shoulders and shook his head silently, and she bit the inside of her cheek, struggling not to call him on his mule-headedness. She closed her eyes and sought for a moment of serenity. “We have to--” she murmured, and reached out to lay her hand on his arm.

“Stop it.” The harshness in his voice made her take a step backward. “You keep saying ‘we,’ and ‘together,’ like we’re a team or something, but you _bailed_ on me. Tonight, if I’d come along five minutes, _two_ minutes later...”

She could hardly deny it, even if he hadn’t caught her completely off guard. “What do you want me to say, Daryl? That I wouldn’t really have gone? that I’m okay? Because I’m not, and I don’t know that I ever will be. I don’t know if I can be around those people. I’m not even sure I should try.”

She’d seen him angry before--when his brother was left behind in Atlanta, and when Merle had come back to the prison with him and Daryl had stood his ground, insisting they take him in. When he was injured and frustrated in his search for Sophia he’d even come close to striking her. But she’d never seen him like this. He was furious, but also--hurt.

Now he loomed over her, putting his face right in hers, so she couldn’t look away. “That’s the second time you’ve shut me out. All this time, you been telling me how I belong, I’m entitled to a place, but you don’t believe it for yourself. You can’t believe it, or you would have told me the truth, not gone off on your own without a word. Not at the prison, and not now.”

“I hardly chose to leave the prison that day,” Carol said sharply, stung by his words. “I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done--I wasn’t thrilled, but I still stand behind it. If it had come out differently--if Rick hadn’t figured it out and decided I needed to go--I’d have faced it, once we got through the flu. And I’d like to think you’d have backed me.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Daryl sneered. “You’d have expected me to back you but you couldn’t come to me in the first place? Man, you’re a piece of work.”

His accusation knocked the breath out of her and struck her absolutely mute. Since she’d found them in the woods outside Terminus, the one thing holding her together had been the assurance of his belief in her, and now it seemed she’d misjudged even that.

She’d only meant to take the responsibility on herself and shield him from the consequences, but she saw now that following her instincts meant she’d cut him out. How many times had she raged silently against the choices Ed made for her, committing her to obligations she didn’t care to take on, or blocking her from opportunities she would have loved to embrace? He’d treated her like an incompetent child, defining her life for her, and now she had done the very same to Daryl, deciding on his behalf that it was too risky to share her plan with him. No wonder he’d lost faith.

She opened her mouth to protest, or maybe to explain herself, but stopped short at the grim, hollow look in his eyes. Neither of them had the reserves to hash this out tonight.

“Just go to sleep,” Daryl said dully as he turned away, all of the fight abruptly gone out of him. “Don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, but we both need to be sharp.” He settled himself on one side of their makeshift bed, propping the crossbow next to him, and leaned back against the wall. “I’ll wake you after a bit.”

* * *

Over the course of the night the air mattress had softened, and in sleep their bodies had drifted together into the depression in the center.

Carol woke in the dark to the sensation of smothering, to find her face smashed into the back of Daryl's vest. That first long breath as she turned her head brought her fully awake, and her awareness expanded to take in the way she was spooned against his back, her arm locked around his ribs, and her hand... caught in his, his thumb softly tracing the lines of her palm. It wasn’t clear whether he’d accidentally fallen asleep beside her, or if he’d decided the danger was low enough to make joining her worth the risk. Either way, the welcome feeling of being pressed up against him brought a lump of gratitude to her throat.

“You owe me,” he said quietly, his hand stilling on hers as he felt her stir. “You got in my head when I never asked you to. You kept me from running away back then, and you don’t get to just choose to leave now, no matter what you did. Not without me. Not without at least giving me the choice.”

She pulled away and rolled to her back, pressing her forearm across her eyes, holding back the pinch of tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I never meant to make it harder for you. I thought I was protecting you.”

“I know,” he sighed, turning his body to mirror hers. “You gotta know, though, you don’t need to go it alone anymore. And that works both ways. I can’t always be watching to make sure you ain’t gonna rabbit sometime. We get back to the others, you gotta promise to stick it out. At least to try.” His hand found hers where it rested on the mattress, meshing their fingers together. “But where you go, I go.” He chuckled then, like he’d thought of something that struck him funny. “Was a thing my grandmaw used to say about that, I think it was from somewhere in the bible, maybe: about how people was supposed to stay together. Wish I could remember now how it went. Bet you’da liked it."

“‘ _Entreat me not to leave thee_ ,’” Carol said slowly, pushing herself back to sit upright, “ _nor to return from following after thee_.” The familiar words rose within her like the beloved scent of her mother’s cherry cobbler, like the intricate guitar line of her favorite Joni Mitchell song, and her voice quavered around the tightness in her chest. “ _For whither thou goest, I will go, and whither thou lodgest, I will lodge, and thy people shall be my people, and thy god my god._ ’”

For a long moment he didn’t say anything, simply stared at her as though he was trying to memorize everything about her face. “That’s it, all right,” he finally said, coming back as though from a long distance. “Should have known you’d know it.”

“It’s one of my favorites,” she admitted. A tear escaped her control, rolling down her cheek, and Daryl brushed it away with his thumb.

“ _Thy god my god_ ,” he said, trying it on for size. “Yeah, I don’t know about that part. But we got the same people already, those people back at the church. Maybe they don’t know you like I do, but they need you with them, whether they get that yet or not. And the rest ain’t even up for question.”

_The sun was rising as they released the rope that banded the doors closed and left their sanctuary behind._

**Author's Note:**

> "Entreat me not to leave thee..." does come from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, from the book of Ruth, Chapter 1, verse 16.
> 
> A/N: In my head Daryl mostly needed to have his say here about feeling betrayed--he can’t actually stay angry with her for long (especially when he knows he probably would have handled it the same way if he’d reached the same conclusions she did about the threat posed by the flu victims), although this BS about trying to disappear on him…? Yeah, they’re probably not done talking about that one yet. And won’t be, until she lets him in and tells him about the rest of what she’s carrying.


End file.
